Team work in business education: history, key concepts, and challenges

Chapter 1 presents a brief history of the role of teams within the industry and how they became a critical part of students’ experiences within higher education and business schools. It clarifies some terminological complexities (e.g., teams vs. groups) and introduces pedagogical considerations that must be explored when including team work activities and assessments in any business school course (including details on distinctive approaches to team learning: cooperative vs. collaborative learning). It also briefly defines and explains how Team-Based Learning (TBL), Project-Based Learning (PjBL), and Problem-Based Learning (PBL) can be applied in different contexts, with the educator playing different roles in each of these approaches. Additionally, it offers a synthesis of the realities of the current standards of practice, unearthing evidence that shows that current practices: (1) fail to achieve team work-linked learning goals and outcomes; (2) leave students and educators with an indelible negative emotional experience; (3) expose educators who prefer not teach team work skills and include team work activities and assessment only to save time and other instructional resources; (4) expose significant doubts in the mind of many educators who believe team work promises are unachievable under the current institutional conditions; and others. All these troubling pieces of evidence call for all business school educators to re-examine how we teach these types of courses.